---
title: Auto Refresh & Time Interval
description: Learn how to enable auto-refresh and set time intervals in OpenLIT dashboards to keep your data live and updated in real time.
---

You can configure OpenLIT dashboards to automatically refresh data at set intervals. This feature is essential for live monitoring dashboards, status boards, and any view that requires up-to-date metrics from ClickHouse.

---

## 🧠 Why Use Refresh Intervals?

Refresh intervals allow you to:
- Keep data fresh without manual reloads and automatically re-run queries behind the scenes  
- Power live dashboards for operations and support teams  
- Monitor real-time metrics

---

## 🛠️ How to Enable Auto-Refresh

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Once set, the dashboard will automatically re-fetch data from ClickHouse at the selected interval.

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## ⚙️ Available Refresh Rate

| Interval   | Use Case                          |
|------------|-----------------------------------|
| Never      | Static dashboards 					    	 |
| 30 seconds | Live dashboards, production stats |
| 1 minute   | Standard monitoring   (default)   |
| 5 minutes  | Low-frequency updates             |
| 10 minutes | Less load on db			             |


## ⚙️ Available Time Intervals

| Range  | Description                            | Example Use Case                          |
| ------ | -------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------- |
| 24H    | Last 24 hours from now                 | Real-time metrics, active users, API logs |
| 7D     | Last 7 calendar days                   | Weekly trends, retention, issue tracking  |
| 1M     | Last 1 calendar month                  | Revenue analysis, product adoption        |
| 3M     | Last 3 calendar months                 | Quarterly metrics, strategic reviews      |
| Custom | Select any start and end date manually | Audits, investigations, historical views  |


Snippet to make use of the time interval in the query:

```sql
WHERE event_time BETWEEN {{filter.timeLimit.start}} AND {{filter.timeLimit.end}}
```


---

<Tip>
Use shorter intervals only for optimized queries. Long-running queries + high refresh rates can overload your ClickHouse backend.
</Tip>

---

## ✅ Best Practices

- Use dynamic bindings like `{{filter.timeLimit.start}}`, `{{filter.timeLimit.end}}` to make your chart respond to dashboard time filters. 
- Avoid using `LIMIT 1000` or wide result sets on high-frequency updates  
- Use refresh intervals in combination with pinned dashboards for kiosk or ops setups  

---

## 🔗 Related Guides

- [Create Your First Folder →](/latest/features/dashboards/create-your-first-folder)  
- [Create Your First Dashboard →](/latest/features/dashboards/create-your-first-dashboard)  
- [Organize your dashboards →](/latest/features/dashboards/organize-your-dashboards)  
- [Pin Your Dashboard →](/latest/features/dashboards/pin-your-dashboard)  
- [Set as Main Dashboard →](/latest/features/dashboards/set-as-main-dashboard)  
- [Widgets →](/latest/features/dashboards/widgets/introduction)  
- [Filters & Dynamic bindings →](/latest/features/dashboards/use-filters-and-dynamic-bindings)